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t6 Nebraska, FEBRUARY 22, 1905 PAGE 2 Is held responsible by tnose who wish to avoid the semblance of imperialism though we have not escaped the reality. Work for Land Leasing A determined effort Is to be made at this session of congress to enact some sort of a land-leasing bill. Al ready the forces in favor of such a measure are gathering in Washington and they come from all sections of the west. C. II. Cornell of Valentine and W. II.' Reynolds of Chadron, rep resentatives, , of the Cattle Growers' Association of "Nebraska, were intro duced' to the president by Congress man Kinkaid, According to Mr. Cor nell, the president stated he was in favor of some kind of a land-leasing : bill, but suggested that the delegation I see Secretary Hitchcock with a view of ascertaining his disposition in the matter. Thereupon the gentlemen mentioned saw Mr. Hitchcock and ho, too, sides with the land leasers. Millard Opposes Leasing - This is as far as a direct appeal to the' powers that be has gone, but it is. only, the beginning, and those who realize the tremendous Interests which are back of this movement appreciate the power of combination when it be gins its work. Decided opposition ex ists in both the senate and house against, land leases. Senator Millard said that he was opposed to this legis lation. . He believed the people of Ne braska also were opposed to the con templated legislation and for one he would vote for a bill to sell the land outright in order that the state might receive some benefit from the lands thus sold, in the way of taxes; that a land-leasing bill to satisfy all inter ests was impossible ,of passage and i he did not believe legislation of the kind 'desired by the cattle interests could be enacted at this time. Director North's Hints Director of the Census North, in a recent, address here, pointed out the great ;heed of standardizing municipal accounts. ' Among other things he said: 1 "We have in the United States 175 cities with a population of 30,000 or more the most magnificent group of cities, the wealthiest, most progres-1 sive, most 'prosperous group of cities' in the world; , and they are resting today under the stigma of being the most extravagantly and inefficiently governed group of cities. The finan cial officers of these cities annually collect and disburse a sum exceeding $765,900,000 or more than the annual cost of all. the state governments and more than the annual cost of main taining the national government. These cities have a bonded or funded I indebtedness equaling $1,500,578,000, after deduction for sinking fund as sets an indebtedness greater than that of the United States. This mu nicipal indebtedness is increasing at an enormous rate, probably not less than $150,000,000 a year. Municipal Ownership . "Another aspect of the subject can not fail to impress the thoughtful ob server of present-day conditions. There is arising throughout the land, the result of systematic propaganda, a movement for municipal ownership . and management of public service utilities. Sooner or later we have got to face this question, and there is boimd to be increasing experimenta tion along these lines. It Is impos sible ,to intelligently study and meas ure these experiments until we possess definite standards by which the re sults of private and public manage ment of these utilities can be com pared. In the existing chaos of mu nicipal accounting this is impossible, and we grope and flounder in the dark. What an object lesson it would be, in the consideration of this im pending question, if, it : were possible for the census office to present a com plete statement of the relative sums which private corporations have paid and are paying for the use and mo- nopoly of the public streets in the different cities of the land. "Until very recently, and since this general movement was organized, no two"of our large cities have kept their books in such shape that receipts and expenditures for particular pur poses can be compared with similar receipts and expenditures of other municipalities. It goes without say ing that, given half a dozen cities of practically the same population and the same geographic and climatic con ditions, the costs of government, for police, fire and many similar services ought to be substantially, the same. Standardization of Accounts "If there can be a standardization of municipal accounts it will be easy to ascertain from the annual census bulletins the exact amount by which any. particular service in any one of these cities exceeds the corresponding cost in others. Whenever the cost is shown to be excessive it will appear at once that something is wrong in the government of that city. ; It will then be possible to put the public finger on the precise spot where the people's money is ' being wasted or stolen." La Follette Exposes Graft The Chickasaw and Choctaw In dians stand to lose perhaps half a billion dollars if a proposition now pending before the senate committee on Indian affairs be made effective. An amendment has been offered to a pending bill authorizing the sale of coal lands belonging to these tribes. All the circumstances connected with the suggestion are suspicious, and the impression prevails that a gigantic steal is under way. Senator La-Fol-lette unearthed the alleged job. It is proposed to sell 350,000 acres of coal land belonging to these In dians. Of this land 107,000 acres are under lease. Provision is made in the amendment to sell these lands, and a commission is created to ap praise them. The commission is to be composed of three members, one appointed by the secretary of the in terior, one by a majority of the lease holders, and these two to select the third. The Indians are not to be rep resented on the commission. Suspicious Plans It is stipulated that the commission shall not consider the present value of the land with the improvements and developments placed there by the lessees, but the price must be fixed at what it was before the betterments were made. Senator Clark, of Montana, a mem ber of the committee and an expert on mining property, points out that the Indians now receive a royalty of 8 per cent on the coal output, and on that basis the lands are worth $300 an acre, an aggregate of $105,000,000 for the entire tract. Mr. Clark says the lands are easily worth $50,000,000. In his opinion the proposition to sell the lands through a commission Is an "infamous, job." When these lands were offered for sale a few years ago $7 an acre was the highest bid received. It is now estimated that if the lands are ap praised and sold as provided in the amendment, they will bring $6 an acre. It looked as if the proposition was going through without trouble, when Senator La Follette began asking awkward questions about the price of the land. Boycotting in Earnest Chinese dealers in Singapore have refused to buy Manilla cigars from Singapore merchants, on the ground that Manila is . an American colony. Still the China-Manila vessels which go fram Manila to Hong Kong every few days all carry large consignments of Manila cigars and cigarettes. Send $1.00 for a year's subscription to The Independent and receive Mr. Berge's book, "The Free Pass Bribery System," free as a premium. This offer will remain but a short time. Independent MONEY FOR KNOWLEDGE i mi m ii i m-' MORE FUNDS FOR EXPERIMENT STATIONS. House Passes a Bill Doubling the Ap , propriations Because of Valuable Re sults to Agriculture Already Ob tained Nebraska Benefits. By practically a unanimous vote the house recently passed a bill in troduced by Congressman Adams, of .Wisconsin, providing for increased an nual appropriations for all of the agri cultural experimental stations through out the country, one of which is the Nebraska station located at Lincoln. Increase Generous These stations were established by the Hatch act of 1887, under the opera tion of which forty-eight states and territories are at the present time each receiving $15,000 annually , for their agricultural experimental sta-; tlons. The act passed last Week pro vides for an increase of $5,000 to each; station for the year ending June 30, i 1906, and an annual increase of the amount for five years by an additional sum of $2,000 over the preceding year until the total increase shall amount to $15,000 annually to each station. In other words, at the end of the five years each of these stations will be getting $30,000 annually, instead of $tfc;000. The total additional appro priation required for the first year will be $240,000. The bill provides spe cifically that the additional . amount appropriated shall be; , spent in the work of experimentation, only, except that 5 per cent may. be applied to the rental or; purchase" of land or the construction of buildings. "Ample pro vision' is made for the supervision of the expenditures by the secretary of agriculture.; . - , Have Shown Their Value The. state experimental stations have done remarkable wort in - de veloping the agricultural interests of the country. It is believed that hardly any other single agency has contrib uted so much to agricultural educa tion, eliminated more errors from farm practices or added more to the profits and comforts of farm life. Last year there were 731,000 names on the mailing lists of these stations, an increase of more than 100,000 in two years. These lists are made up upon the request of men who want the literature of a station and they indicate the estimation cf the work by the farmers of the country. UNION PACIFIC'S FARM TRAIN Lectures Were Well Attended Durink Three Days' Tour. The Union Pacific crop and soil train which left Lincoln, Tuesday, February 13, for a three-day tour over its Nebraska lines, touching corn im provement and, soil fertility, met with the most encouraging results in at tendance of farmers, notwithstanding the inclement weather that ha"s spread over Nebraska for thirty-six hours, Stops for lectures were made the two first days out at Valparaiso, Weston, Valley, North Bend, Schuyler, Colum bus, . Silver Creek, Central City, North Platte, Gothenburg, Lexington, Kear ney, Gibbon, Fairfield, Davenport and Alexandria. . As on former pure seed specials the train is fitted with two lecture coaches besides the cars tor the ac commodation of those traveling with the tram, but it, differs in that the cars offer, the farmers a choice of sub jects.. One car is fitted for lectures on- seed 3corn, the . oth,er for lectures on-soils. The division .was tried ten tatively on a former seed train and a marked preference for the seed corn lecture was shown by the farmers. The fact is apparent, the soil lec turers insist, that in many parts of Nebraska the soil will no longer pro duce as large crops as formerly when the land was newer. The longer the soil has been cropped the more ap parent is this loss of fertility. The soil constituent which has been reduced by this cropping is the vege table mould, or humus. In a prairie soil fairly welh supplied with humus there will be about 8l2 per cent of black mold, or humus, whereas a sim ilar soil long cultivated without the application of fertilizing material will show the presence of only about a third as much. , This renders the soil less productive both .because of the lack of an element entering very large ly 'into plant production, but also be cause a soil poor in humus is less able to - absorb and hold moisture than v-a humus-rich soil. The poorer soil loses disproportionately, therefore, in time of drouth. ' " Barnyard manure added to the soil and plowed under restores this ele ment, but there are few farms in Ne braska that produce enough barnyard manure to keep up the humus supply. Then, too, in many parts of the state there is too little rainfall to insure the rotting of the manure which means that in the drier years the manured soils will dry out badly, causing the crops to fire from drouth. To keep up thefertility and drouth resisting quality of Nebraska soil, it is contended, it will be necessary to grow crops which produce more humus than they consume. The grasses, clover, and alfalfa are recommended as such crops. This latter poit is given emphasis by the experiment station . lecturers. The future of Nebraska soil, they are convinced, must depend upon the readiness with which the farmers adopt hay and pasture crops, making live stock and dairy products a much more prominent factor in agricultural production than is the case at present. Said to be Wavering The state department has had noth ing official confirmatory of the report that the -German government is about to adopt some measure calculated to postpone the application of the max imum German tariff duties on United States ifports March 1. But communi cations from unofficial sources and a close study of the trend of the Ger man economic press have afforded ground for the belief that as the day approaches which would mark the be ginning of a tariff war with the United States, a spirit of mi rest and uneasiness is developing in Germany. It appears also that the governing class would welcome any arrange ment that would avert such a war if it could be done without a blow to German pride. - Senator Piatt Accused A petition asking for the expulsion of Senator T. C. Piatt of New York from the senate, which had been filed with the vice president, was laid before the senate by that official. The document is signed by C. W. Post, the promoter of the Post check bill. The petition is supported by affidavits of Mr. Post's secretary, C. E. Dawson, and his brother, to the effect that Mr. Piatt, in the course of an interview, announced that he would tend to les sen his express company's money or der business and that he would oppose any other measure that seemed against the interest of the express cmopanies, as "what affected "one af fected all." Jefferson Day Banquet Governor Folk, Senator Joseph W. Bailey of Texas and Senator William Joel Stone of Missouri have accepted invitations to respond to toasts at the Jefferson day banquet. of the Demo cratic Editorial association of Missouri to. be , held in Kansas City, the even ing of April 13. It; was originallv in tended to hold the banquet March 9. The banquet will follow a day's ses sion of the association.